We parked in the grassy lot across from Cafeina and headed east on 23rd Street, stopping in the Purvis Young Gallery. Then we walked up 2nd Ave. to Wynwood Kitchen and Bar, which was a bit like a gallery with tables. We sat in the garden, a wonderful open space, admiring the murals on the surrounding buildings and watching the planes fly overhead. My ceviche was flavored with coconut and lemon grass.
As the sun set, the crowds grew. A figure on stilts, holding a parasol, glided up the sidewalk encased in gold. We watched a man filling a wall with what looked like a portrait of an over-excited Mao.
"Who?" a young man asked.
"Mao Tse-tung," I said. He had never heard of him.
"Have you heard of Stalin?"
"Yes. I'm a big student of World War II."
"Well, he was sort of to China what Stalin was to Russia."
"Thanks for the lesson," he said, without a trace of irony.
Just south of 23rd there was a circling of food trucks in an empty lot. The atmosphere was a bit like at a county fair, except that instead of fried Twinkies there were organic burgers. And a lot of the young women were wearing high heels. One vendor, Gastropod, sold gourmet food out of an Airstream. I bought a chicken and avocado taco.
Heading back to the car, we stopped in the lofts on 23rd Street.
"This place is unique," one of the artists, standing in his kitchen, told us. "It's got living spaces, work spaces and retail spaces. New York doesn't even have this. This is very progressive for Miami, which otherwise is really backwards."
The man had moved from Philadelphia. "I love the creativity," he said, "that results when the flotsam and jetsam of the ocean meets the land."
